No Man of Her Own is a 1950 American film noir drama directed by Mitchell Leisen and featuring Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Phyllis Thaxter, Jane Cowl and Lyle Bettger.
With a better life provided for her son, Helen continues the ruse while Bill Harkness, who is the elder brother of the deceased Hugh, falls in love with her.
In his May 4, 1950 review of the film for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther generally compliments the principal cast's performances, but he pans both the structure and tone of the screenplay itself:For the fact is that it is...a lurid and artificial tale, loaded with far-fetched situations and deliberate romantic clichés.
And the script which Sally Benson and Catherine Turney prepared from a novel by William Irish ("I Married a Dead Man") makes a silly botch of same.
After previewing the film in Hollywood on February 17, 1950–two and a half months prior to the feature's national release–the critic for Variety endorsed the film and drew special attention to the quality of Stanwyck's and Lund's performances and to the overall quality of the motion picture's production values:"No Man of Her Own" combines an adult love story with melodrama, runs off with the intensity of a full-bloom soap opera, and is altogether satisfying screen dramatics...Barbara Stanwyck does a beautiful job of portraying the heroine...[and] John Lund wraps up his role as the man who falls in love with a girl he believes to be the widow of his dead brother.
It's a fine job...Richard Maibaum's production does not miss on any phase of the story, whether drama or melodrama, and the lineup of behind-the-camera credits are in keeping.
Donald L. Fapp's photography, the score by Hugo Friedhofer, editing, costumes, settings and art direction all figure importantly.
"The pot-boiler is extremely well acted and its clever cast, headed by attractive and talented Barbara Stanwyck, enables it to confound the moralists and prove that two or more wrongs can make a right, while, at the same time, handing out moving and occasionally gripping screen fiction.